North Korea brandishes threats as UN debates Cheonan sinking
| Beijing
If rhetoric could kill, the Korean Peninsula would have been strewn with corpses Wednesday, felled by fresh verbal volleys from Pyongyang warning of nuclear war.
As it was, South Korea鈥檚聽military dismissed the outburst as 鈥渞outine rhetoric.鈥� But tensions between the two Koreas are dangerously high at the moment.
So high, said North Korea鈥檚聽main newspaper Rodong Sinmun in a commentary, that 鈥渁 minor accidental incident could trigger an all-out war and develop into a nuclear war.鈥�
The warning followed a veiled threat by North Korea鈥檚 ambassador to the United Nations, Sin Son-ho, that if the UN Security Council reprimands Pyongyang for sinking a South Korean warship last March, 鈥渇ollow-up measures will be carried out by our military forces.鈥�
North Korea denies having anything to do with the sinking of the Cheonan and the death of 46 seamen aboard. An international inquiry blamed Pyongyang聽for the attack, and Seoul has taken the issue to the Security Council.
China, wielding a veto, will almost certainly protect its ally聽from any resolution imposing new sanctions on the hermit regime. But even a nonbinding statement by the Council condemning North Korea for the Cheonan tragedy would trigger military 鈥渇ollow-up,鈥� Mr. Sin threatened on Tuesday.
Tensions peak
Such rhetoric has indeed become almost mundane in the crisis that has rumbled on for years over North Korea鈥檚 nuclear program.
And analysts do not believe Pyongyang has the technical capability to use a nuclear bomb on the battlefield. Nor does anyone expect Seoul to start a hot war that would send its economy into a tailspin.
But in the current atmosphere of tension it is not hard to envisage how the situation might get out of hand. One flash point is South Korea鈥檚 announcement that it will resume anti-North broadcasts from loudspeakers ranged along the heavily armed border.
North Korea has said its soldiers will shoot at any loudspeakers carrying propaganda from the South. And the South Korean defense minister has warned repeatedly that his men will return any fire with overwhelming intensity.
It is not surprising, perhaps, that while closing its ears to the rhetoric, South Korea鈥檚 military is keeping its eyes open. 鈥淲e are maintaining our vigilance,鈥� an officer with the Joint Chiefs of Staff was reported as saying on Wednesday.
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